So, I decided I should probably post about my #PLAN for the foreseeable future. A lot of people ask about my investment theses, so that seems to justify this post. Let’s see if I can even begin to support that statement.

I will continue to screen using the method(s) outlined in my monthly Watch List post.

I will continue to withdraw funds as needed to augment our income as outlined in my monthly income phase of The #Plan #UPDATE.

I will continue to invest monthly as outlined in my #ShareBuilder #Updates.

I will continue to “harvest” capital gains by selling holdings at new 52 week highs with “limit orders” in minimum 100 share lots so I can specify AON (All or None). I may also sell for other reasons (i.e.; because I can, I felt like it, I needed the money, etc.).

I’ll try to outline a bit of the rest of the #Plan each week with updates on my thinking, such as it is…

Well, I think it’s time for a little consolidation (of this posting, not the portfolio!). I am going to repeal and replace some of the following with a condensed version in the next few posts, and that process will continue so this particular post doesn’t get too long. I don’t want anybody falling asleep reading this! 😉

So, I’d heard about this new robinhood thing, and I’ve given it absolutely no thought until recently.

I signed up for an account, and also set up weekly deposits of $25 to the account. That lasted for 2 weeks, and then I increased my deposits to $94/week, which stopped just this week. I then deposited an additional $282.00 to cover acquisition costs of CLM & CRF as I participate in the rights offering (at Robinhood only).

Capital One Investing’s sharebuilder plan, or Automatic Investment Plan, or AIP has the lowest cost per “buy” trade order other than robinhood, and that’s where our Roth IRAs are held. Sell orders, OTOH, are $6.95 each, so balance that with a per trade cost to buy of less than $1 with a sell trade cost of $6.95, and the average is ~$3.975 per round-trip trade. Robinhood has no provisions currently for any type of retirement account, so they will stay where they are for now, at both current brokers; Capital One Investing (they should really shorten their name) & Fidelity (for the DTC discount plan).

Now, a little about my investing philosophy; “If they don’t pay, I don’t play”. I LOVE dividends! Dividends are my “main squeeze”, and capital gains are my “side piece”. (NOTE: My actual “main squeeze” is my wife, and I have no “side piece”.) So, if a stock pays dividends, I’m interested, and if they don’t I’m disinterested. Simple plan for a simple man.

Our #HYHRD (High Yield, High Return Dividend) portfolio is all about the income, so that’s what I look for in an investment; high yield while minimizing risk as best I can (dividend yields of ~5%+ & annual returns of ~10%+).

According to calculations done on my Google sheets, my current YOC (Yield on Cost) is much better than that! I have recently to begun to factor in the cash held in each account for the total portfolio value, so that has changed some of the calculations slightly. But, the total value of the portfolio is now more correctly reflected on the spreadsheets.

I have been asked what my “favorite” holding is, and I really can’t answer that. Here’s why; to have a favorite entails some sort of emotional attachment and I am not emotionally enamored with any of my holdings and would sell it all in a heartbeat if they fail to pay me. I’m tired of paying for things, and I want to be paid now. I feel it’s “my turn”, and there are “no cuts” in this line!

I don’t day trade, or swing trade, or play options (anymore).

If any questions are posted on my blog, I’ll answer them and include them here in future posts if they’re worthy.

I’ll also continue to try and be as helpful as I can on the StockTwits platform.

Here’s what someone said about me recently on Stocktwits;

@panda317 By far you are my favorite poster I’ve found on the Stocktwits message board.Carry on.

My wife recently had a total knee replacement, and was doing well and progressing very nicely. Then, one night she said she thought she had indigestion, and the next morning still felt the same way. She tried to take her blood pressure but couldn’t get a reading. Since she’s a retired nurse, she got her stethoscope to listen to her heart, and it was rapid, irregular, and extremely loud! She called her doctor, but could only leave messages about rapid and irregular heartbeat. She was told that an “urgent” message would be sent to her doctor’s staff and they would call back. She called twice during the day on Wednesday, but no return calls. She finally called her visiting nurse (from the knee surgery) and she came out within the hour, took her blood pressure and found it extremely low, and her pulse was rapid and erratic. She said she thought it might be afib and recommended going to the ER. I drove my wife to the ER and they took her blood pressure and pulse and whooshed her off to a room and hooked up a central line catheter and heart monitor and then the ER attending paid a visit and came back with the attending cardiologist and admitted her. Yes, it was afib and I was watching her blood pressure bottoming out and her heart rate going from 39 BPM to more than 186 bpm and everywhere in between. It was quite frightening. After they brought her up to CCU I went home. That was around 2 AM the following day. I went back the same morning about 8 AM and stayed until midnight. This went on for 4 days and the doctors tried all kinds of medications to try to stabilize her heart rate but her blood pressure kept dropping. Finally her heart rate stabilized and her blood pressure started to come up but was still too low to be discharged. I think today is the day she gets to come home because her bp has finally stabilized. She saw the cardiologist who cleared her to go home so now we are waiting for an attending to come in and write the prescriptions and discharge her. Since this is Memorial Day weekend, it may take awhile. So, I came home to write my blog posts.

Have a good weekend!

We received a $200 bonus in each of our Capital One Roth IRAs for transferring from Fidelity.

I’ve been giving some thought to traveling, and how best to manage the investing, blog, etc. I don’t think I’ll be bringing my laptop with me, but I will have a 64GB USB thumb drive with the Portable Apps suite loaded, and TDM software. I also plan on moving the text files that are the basis for my blog posts. I have Firefox synced up and ready to go (almost), so I should be all set. Another plan would be to just let it all go and catch up with it when I return from any travels. 😉

So, I have increased my weekly deposit amount for robinhood from $25 to $94 starting June 5th (that $25 per week thing didn’t last long, only 2 weeks!). I will continue at that new rate, buying every Monday until it changes.

And, it just change as described above. I believe I will begin making deposits of $150 on the 1st & 15th of each month starting on September 1st.

Also, deposits were changed in our 2 taxable accounts;

PandAjoint, held at Fidelity, will now receive $150 (instead of $50) each month on the 15th, beginning August 15th.
ind-PandA, held at Capital One Investing, will now receive $650 (instead of $106/week) each month on the 15th, beginning August 15th.

I was once asked, after returning from a trip abroad (to England, etc.) if they also have a 4th of July there. My response was; “Well, no actually, their calendars go from July 3rd to July 3rd and a half, then right to July 5th, skipping the 4th of July entirely.” They responded with; “I thought so.” and left it at that. I was gobsmacked! 😉

We surpassed $125,000.00 in dividends received since #HYHRD portfolio inception on 4/4/12 on the 1st of August!

With this month’s Capital One Investing’s sharebuilder investments, there was a change with how investments will be calculated;

For the joint taxable account, the focus will be on those holdings paying the least and adding to them proportionately so that their monthly contribution to the account will increase. I will look for Annual Dividend, and pick the bottom 3 for weekly investments in this taxable account. Investment amounts are weighted, with the lowest ranked getting the largest investment, and shared proportionately among the remaining 2 investments. With this method, my aim will be to increase the amounts paid until all are paying fairly equal amounts each month. This will take a while, I imagine.

For the Roth IRA accounts, the focus will be on those holdings with the highest total return and adding to them proportionately so that their monthly contribution to the account will increase. I will look for Annualized Return, and pick the top 12 for investments in this untaxed account. Investment amounts are weighted, with the highest ranked getting the largest investment, and shared proportionately among the remaining 11 investments. With this method, my aim is to increase the amounts paid each month. It’s like giving myself a raise each month.

Well, except for when holdings cut their dividends. This is where having a large amount of holdings actually helps mitigate the effects of cuts.

On July 21st, $DFP -3.125% $FFC -7.03125% $FLC -5.263157894736847% $PFD -6.8181818181818095% & $PFO -5.479452054794507% all announced dividend cuts. $DFP makes up 1.16% of our portfolio, $FFC 2.9%, $FLC 2.2%, $PFD 3.37%, & $PFO 1.35%. BONUS: On July 17th, I sold 100 shares of $PFO just under new 52-week highs in each of our Roth IRA accounts.

On July 26th, DHF declared declares $0.0235 dividend, a decrease of -11.32075471698113% so on July 27th, I sold 1700 shares of DHF in our Roth IRA accounts held at Capital One Investing for a slight profit. This money will be re-deployed over the next month or so for better returns. I still have 100 shares left in my Roth, and 500 shares left in my wife’s Roth. I will eventually sell another 400 shares in her account. Someday…

I’m thinking that, for September, the Roth investment thesis will change from looking for highest yield (YOC) to looking for highest Total Return (Annualized Return). The holdings with the highest total return are the holdings that are more likely to be sold at a profit, so it makes sense to accumulate enough that can be sold in 100 share lots. It’s not that looking for increased income (YOC) was a bad thesis, but Total Return might be a better thesis for the coming months. I do see some possibility of turmoil ahead. It usually begins with news items that start out with “Trump tweets…”, so there’s that. Who will he fire next on this reality game show of his? OK, enough politics…

Let’s talk religion instead;

OK, so last update mentioned some changes to the investment theses for the Capital One Investing (Sharebuilder) Roth IRA accounts. Dammit, they really need a new name! Shorter, more concise, etc.

Anyway, the joint taxable brokerage will continue investing in the lowest paying holdings until they’re all paying amounts greater than, say, $1.00 per month. This account is great, because while being a taxable account it does contain some tax-free CEFs and some of those are also AMT-free. About half of the holdings are (federal) tax-free. So, getting them to the point where they all pay more is a great idea. Plus, this account is currently DRIPping all dividends, so it’s not like I’m going to withdraw any more money from this account, at this time. I did make a small withdrawal on August 1st, but that was just to get the YTD total withdrawn to an even amount ($2,500.00). Do you watch Big Bang Theory? My wife calls me “Sheldon”…

The investment theses for both Roth IRA accounts is changing from a purely yield-based method to a methodology using Total Return. It should still boost our income, but it should also boost our holdings that are likely to be sold. Recall that I like to sell in minimum 100 share lots using limit orders at or above the 52-week high. I also like to get a minimum of about $1,000.00 total proceeds for each sale. The reason for the minimum of 100 shares is so I can specify AON (All Or None) and guarantee a minimum price instead of having the order trigger when a new high is reached and then having the price retreat so that by the time the stock is sold it is no longer at or above the new 52-week high. The difference can be substantial when that happens. Also, if you have a limit order to sell 500 shares and it is triggered and you sell 14 shares the order remains open until the original number of shares specified are sold. This can take days, sometimes. And, if you change or cancel the rest of the order you must now reconcile the fact that you just sold 14 shares at a new 52-week high (yay!) but now there’s a trade fee, which alters the percentage gain quite a bit and could turn it into a loss (boo!).

I want to briefly mention our 4 accounts held @ Fidelity. These contain only DTC discount eligible holdings, and all DRIP. The only account getting new money deposited is the joint taxable account. We can’t put any more money into our Roth IRA accounts or my IRA account because we have no earned income. I do want to continue to make investments in the taxable account at Fidelity, and have targeted a quarterly investment scheme. Since I only deposit $150 each month plus the rewards from our Fidelity Rewards Visa that might be a good plan, but it also might turn out to be a situation where I only invest every 6 or 9 or even 12 months because the cash balance is so low. Remember that trade fee thing? Yeah, that puts a stop to a lot of investing that I do, especially @ Fidelity.

As far as Robinhood is concerned, they’ll be getting $150 on the 1st & 15th of each month to invest, and they have no trade fees. So far, so good. Dividends are coming in.

Sharebuilder joint taxable account gets a deposit of $650 each month, on the 15th.

Those are the only 3 accounts that are getting new money, and it ain’t much, is it? That’s why it’s so important to me to get the maximum amount of income in each of the Roth IRA accounts so I can invest and/or withdraw as needed. I only withdraw from the Capital One Investing Roth IRAs, so that is my focus for income at this time.

MILESTONE!: We have collected over $125,000.00 in dividends since the inception of the #HYHRD portfolio. This milestone was reached on August 1st, 2017. Next milestone will be $150,000.00 in dividends received.

CLM & CRF have rights issues pending. Capital One Investing (sharebuilder) and Fidelity both charge more than $30 for each rights issue in each account, so that makes it cost-prohibitive. However, Robinhood charges $50 for rights issues over 100 shares. When pressed, they admitted there would be no charge for rights issues under 100 shares. So, I decided to participate in the rights offerings in my Robinhood account, only. That will be a first for me! As you can imagine, this has enamored me even more towards Robinhood, and I am willing to forget they shorted me a penny on my first statement. The math just doesn’t add up. I did write to them about that, though, and am awaiting their response.

Next week, I will continue to trim some of this posting…

On August 6th, I decided to make sharebuilder investments in our joint taxable account on a weekly basis instead of once a month. This, of course, will use additional trades that cost $1.00 each. Weekly investments will continue in September.

I also decided to make 11 investments each week in our Roth IRA accounts, also using additional trades that cost $1.00 each. So far, I have added AGD, AWP, BXMX, DIAX, IVH, KIO, OXLC, QQQX, RA, REML, & SPXX the 2nd week, and for this upcoming 3rd week. For the 4th & 5th weeks, I will replace AGD & AWP with MITT & MORL. The regular monthly investments for these accounts will resume September 5th.

PLEASE TAKE NOTE AND REMEMBER THIS!

I’m not telling anyone to buy anything or giving anyone any advice, because that’s illegal. You see, I have no letters after my name, like RIA, CFA, etc. I SIMPLY DO NOT GIVE ADVICE. I only tell (and show!) what I do. You, like me, are all alone in this.